


Glitter Like Fools Gold

by asongstress1422



Series: Fire in the Stars [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anger, Child Death, Crying, Death, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Monster - Freeform, Sad, War, carbon monoxide poisoning, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 12:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13248339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongstress1422/pseuds/asongstress1422
Summary: Kylo and Rey are confronted with what being on opposite sides of a war really mean





	Glitter Like Fools Gold

Note: This is part 3. I believe it is important read [part 1 ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13110015)to get the emotional weight of this chapter, but that's just me.

* * *

 

A bolt of fear, like lightning, wakes her. Her eyes pop open, heart pounding half a light year a minute. Something is wrong. Something is very very wrong.

She sits up in her bed listening hard but hears nothing out of the ordinary. She begins sliding her feet to the ground when he burst into existence right in front of her.

 _‘Where are you?’_ he demands taking her shoulders in his hands.

“Wh- Kylo?’ she blinks groggily, trying to place the emotion in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

 _‘Tell me where you are right now!’_ his hands are like claws in her skin yet they still tremble.

“I’m, no-” she closes her eyes trying to force her mind to focus. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

It was their first unspoken rule, they were not to ask locations or go seeking information that could be used to better their own causes. It left them room to breath, to be vulnerable around each other without the threat of treason tainting their every interaction. It lets them pretend for those small sections of time when the force connects them that they weren’t fighting a war where the other was the enemy.

 _‘Never mind that.’_ He gives her a shake and she opens her eyes to see him staring intently at her. _‘If you are on quadrant SNr354’s seventh moon, you need to get off world. Now.’_

Fear rolls across her skin. The base is on... “I don’t understand, how--”

 _‘It doesn’t matter. They’ve found it. They are minutes from being within range to decimate the lunar outpost._ ’

“You can’t!” Rey gasps. “There are civilians on world, children--”

 _‘Traitors against the First Order for harboring rebel fugitives,’_ he interrupts, his eyes boring into hers. _‘There will be no quarter. You have to get out now!’_

“You have to stop them! They--”

 _‘I can’t. Orders has already been given. It’s too late to stop anything. But I can save you.’_ His voice softens as he cups her cheek. _‘Get on a personal transport. Come to me. I will give orders that you are not to be harmed.’_

“Monster!” She screams knocking his arms away. “You think I would run to you after you killed all those innocent people? You disgust me!”

He steps back, his face morphing into stillness. _‘If you won't come to me, fine. But get off world. You have eight minutes.’_

Like a holocall terminating, he blinks out of existence. She sits there feeling sick, imagining all those people dead.

In seven minutes.

She tears from her bed, slamming into the hall screaming for anyone and everyone. Leia, Poe, Chewie, Finn. That have to get a message out, they have to save all those people. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if Kylo kills them all.

* * *

 

It was three hours later when they got the report. The base had been found by the First Order and bombed.

Their message was not received in time.

Out of three hundred, twenty-four -- a group out foraging at the time of the attack -- were all that was left of the Resistance outpost on SNr354. They were asking for assistance to help scavenge the wreckage for anything of use. And to help bury the bodies.

Several high ranking officials were against going back. Stating the risk of the First Order being close by was too high and they couldn’t chance more men to a second bombing.

Rey threatened to steal a personal transport and go back herself. Finn and Poe took her side along with dozens of techcrew. It was turning out to be a volatile disagreement between the Elite and the rank-n-files. Leia cut the argument short by giving Rey, a group of thirty under the leadership of Poe, orders to render aid.

By midday she was stepping back into the harsh atmosphere of 354’s seventh moon. It was like walking into one of her nightmares.

Smoke was still seeping from the rubble. The main door, severn inches of Laminasteel, was a crumpled heep thirty yards away, half embedded in a tree. It didn’t look like a single wall was left standing from ground level.

So far the twenty-four had been able to dig out three people, they were badly wounded but breathing.

Every few minutes another body was unearthed.

Rey ignores these except to flag down one of the burial team. Ignores that they use to be people, ones she had passed in the halls not even three days ago. Ignores the sick feeling that folds in waves over her and the dark little voice that whispers that she could have stopped this with a lightsaber through that monsters heart months ago!

Rey ignores it all, picking through decimated walls to find bits of tech that was still mostly salvageable. This use to be her life and she had been good enough at it to survive. And that is what she will do now. Survive. Keep moving forward. Not think.

She comes over a lip of shifting debris to see several people, including Poe and Finn, were trying to lift a mostly intact, but fallen, wall. The group had bent iron bracings as lever points and ropes trying to hoist the thing up and out of the way. Rey stood there confused until she realised the area would have been the communication hall. Lots of useful little tools.

“Hey!” she waves her arms calling down to them. They turned almost at one to look up at her, squinting their eyes against the sinking sun at her back. Having their attention she gestures for them to get out of the way. It takes the first rumble of the ground for them to get the idea and they all scramble as she uses the force to grab the wall and tip it out of the way. She lets it fall with a crash that sends everyone into coughing fits at the resorting dust cloud.

Once the dust settles they find five more peo- bodies and Rey has to look away. So much loss and the Resistance hadn't even been there. There had been some stationed staff but for the most part the outpost were refugees; the old, the wounded, women and childr--

Her heart and mind stutter at the thought.

 _Please no,_ she mouths brokenly.

She takes off over the ruff terrain, following the same path she had weeks ago. Left from the cantina, down the long hall that is now so much scrap. Right at the first branch, then straight. Left, left-- she uses her force to help dig out the ladder, ignoring the very real cuts to gets from clawing through with her hands as well.

_Please, no._

She drops down the hole she creates. It’s deeper underground here, the hall still mostly intact with only a few chunks of debris she has to weave around as she makes the final right.

The door.

Rey blinks her eyes as her vision wobbles slightly. She ignores that too as she pushes inside. It’s small. Standing in the center, if she were to stretch her arms out she would touch all four walls. A mat was tucked under some low hanging pipes that someone had the thought of mind to hang scrap cloth over to create a sleeping cubby.

 _Please…_ Rey brushes the cloth out of the way.

The little boy, Mica, could have been sleeping his face was so peaceful. He was on his side tucked up against the wall, a knot doll clasped under his chin and a blanket lovingly tucked around him.

‘ _Rey,’_ A black glove enters her line of sight. It wipes the tears she doesn't know are falling.

_No..._

Firm hands try to turn her head away from the sleeping child. _‘Rey, look at me.’_

_No._

_‘Rey?’_

“No!” She explodes turning on him with fists and teeth and fury taking them both to the ground. “No, no, no, no!”

‘ _Rey, stop it!’_ She keeps hitting him, wanting to hurt him, wanting to get rid of this terrible guilt that was killing her inside. ‘ _Rey!’_

“Why?” She grabs his tunic in her fist and shakes him, sobbing. “Why did you do this? He was just a kid! A baby! He didn’t deserve-- he didn’t--” She breaks down, crying into his chest.

Not knowing what else to do, his arms slowly come up to cradle her.

“No!” She breaks away, a snarl on her tear stained face. “No, you don’t get to touch me. This is your fault. Everything is your fault! If not for you--” her face contorts as she holds herself against the sobs tearing through her. “I trusted you and now he’s dead!”

_‘Rey, I’m sor-’_

“Don’t you dare,” she spits, her head swimming. “Your words mean nothing to me. Your actions speak for themselves and you are not sorry!” Her chest hurts and her face is hot. “Does this make you happy, killing innocent children in their beds? Monster!” Her stomach turns and she pivots and vomits on the metal floor.

She kneels hunkered there for a minute trying to catch her breath. Why was it like trying to breath in a sandstorm? Everything hot and heavy. A huge weight pressing down on her…

‘Rey!’  Her eyes snap open to see Ben’s worried face kneeling over her. His hands run along her face and neck, the cold feeling wonderful against her heated skin.

 _No,_ she pulls away, _shouldn’t feel nice in his arms...Evil...Murderer…_

He jerks as if stabbed but movies his hand from her face. She kills the small part of her that misses his touch and sits up.

_‘We have to get you out of here. You have--”’_

“Carbon Monoxide poisoning,” Rey nods blinking the fuzziness from her sight. Her head lolls back on its own accord, looking at the little boy. “I wont leave him.”

 _‘You can barely stand.’_ he said, voice tight. _‘You can’t--’_

“I wont leave him.” She rolls over so that she is on all fours and carefully eases Mica out from his little den. He’s cold and lax in her arms and she feels fresh tears well up in her eyes.

She tries to stand but can’t seem to find the strength. Her heart is beating painfully hard in her chest as she cradles the little boy.

 _‘Give him to me.’_ She looks up dumbly at the man crouching beside her with his arms out. ‘ _Give me the boy. I need to get you out of here and if carrying the boy accomplishes that, fine.’_

 _“_ But you’re not really hear, will that work?”

In answer he scoops the body from her arms holding it gently against his shoulder. He reaches down and pulls her to her feet, steadying her when she sways. ‘ _Now lead us out of here.’_

She stumbles from the room forced to use the wall as her support. Her head is spinning and she feels the urge to vomit again. But every time she stops, he’s there pushing her forward. It seems like a lifetime before they reach the ladder. She smiles as she stands in the circle of sunlight coming from the hole she created.

‘ _Up you go.’_ he urges. 

“No,” she says softly as her legs going out from under her and she collapses in that bit of sunshine. “Can’t.”

 _‘Rey_?’ He’s kneels down beside her.

“Can’t, Ben,” her words are slurred. It’s getting easier to breath or maybe she’s just taking fewer breaths. Her heart flickers slowly and doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s nice, almost peaceful. Is this what she fought against all those years in Jakku? “Don’t have the strength.”

She hears him growl as he moves away and the metallic ringing of someone walking up the ladder. She blinks and his boots are dispersing into the sunlight. Blinks again he’s back infront of her again, his arms now empty.

She frowns. “Where’s Mica?”

 _‘I brought him up. Now it’s your turn.’_ He stands her up, doing most of the work as her body is no longer under her control, and tips her over his shoulder. He staggers slightly before righting himself.

She frowns again. That’s not right. He’s always perfectly poised, perfectly in control of himself and his movements, he doesn’t stagger. _What is wrong with him,_ she questioned as she sways against his back as he climbs the ladder trying to force her brain to work despite the blood rushing to it.

She closes her eyes against the full blaze of the sun as the reach topside, pain lancing through her head. He carefully lays her on the ground, breathing heavily. She looks up concerned, “Ben, what’s wrong?

He shakes his head, still panting, and lurches to his feet. Palming a fist size chunk of rubble he slams it against an exposed pipe. Hitting it until someone comes to check out what is making the noise.

A lone worker crests the crater and sounds the alarm when he see the force girl laying in the debris. Soon a whole platoon of people are rushing to her aid.

“Rey? Stars, Rey!” Finn reaches her first, slipping and sliding to her side, pulling her into his lap like a rag doll.

Poe is steps behind him running his hands over her face, checking for signs of a concussion to account for why she was so unresponsive.

He’s speaking to her. She can see his lips moving and knows he is asking her important questions but everything is coming though a hazy filter. Her lungs feel like spikes are being driven in them each time her chest expands. It hurts. Everything hurts and she just wants to close her eyes but everytime she does they shake her back awake. They both seem so worried.

She sees Ben standing behind them. ' _Tell them what’s wrong,’_ he urges panicked.

“Carbon monoxide,” she saids aloud.

Poe turns and barks an order, she can feel the rumble of the command in her chest, and one of the group breaks off at a run.

He turns back to her, his face serious as he feels along her throat pressing firmly against her pulse.

She feels Finn ask a question as he adjusts her in his arms. Poe shakes his head.

A portable oxygen tank is thrust over Poe’s shoulder. He takes it, adjusting the dial and pressing the mask to her face.

Cold floods her lungs drowning the burning pain. She breathes deeply again and sighs, relaxing back against Finn.

“That good?” Poe asks, with a smile.

Rey nods, breathing again, her own smile shaky.

“We’ll get you back to the ship in just a minute.”

She pushes the mask out of the way so she can talk. “Where’s Mica?”

He eases the mask back over her nose and mouth. “You just breath. They took the boy over with the others. They’ll lay him to rest with his momma. You need to worry about you right now.”

She feels a ghost of a hand in her hair and looks up. Kylo is there, his eyes dark. ‘ _I_ am _sorry.’_

 _Don't,_ she says in her mind, her heart aching.  _I can't anymore. P_ _lease, just go._  

She closes her eyes against him; pressing down on the bond, strangling it with all her will, until she feels him disappear.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. I would really love to know if you read ether the other two parts or not and if that made a difference in your experience. Grateful for all feed back!


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